Tigritudes: pan-African film anthology comes to London
The "brilliant yet lesser-known gems of Pan-African cinema" are set to be shown in London across a two-month season, said Time Out.
It is a "subjective and chronological anthology", which shares the "range, inventiveness, and vitality of a moving image culture afflicted by chronic international under-distribution", said BFI Southbank, which will be showing a selection of films from the wider collection. Others will be shown at the Tate Modern and The Garden Cinema, Covent Garden.
Films have been chosen by curators and filmmakers Dyana Gaye and Valérie Osouf. "Each tells the story of a moment in time, creating resonances between works, and allowing viewers to identify geopolitical or formal connections", said Tate Modern.
There's "loads to see", said Time Out, including "Integration Report 1" by Madeleine Anderson, the "first African-American documentarian", and "Cabascabo", a "thrilling" drama directed by Omuarou Ganda, from 1968, about a "Senegalese rifleman enlisted in the Indochina war".
Also on the bill is Philippe Lacôte's award-winning 2020 "Night of the Kings", an Ivory Coast prison drama. It blends "modern-day thriller dynamics and fluid handheld visuals with older storytelling traditions", said The Guardian when it came out in 2021.
As well as the work of such "critically acclaimed directors" including Julie Dash, Med Hondo and Souleymane Cissé, "less recognisable" names are featured. Their work forms part of the "myriad richly diverse and powerful film cultures" of Africa and its diasporas, expressed in an "unprecedented plurality of styles, themes, and languages", said the BFI.
Launched in France, before touring across the African continent, the complete project comprises 128 films from 42 countries spanning 1956 to the present day.
The season's title comes from a phrase coined by Nigerian poet, playwright and Nobel prize-winner Wole Soyinka: "A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude; he pounces" .
Tigritudes: a Pan-African Film Cycle, 1 June to 31 July, BFI, London SE1; bfi.org.uk
